Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1887-05-19
METAL RAILWAY TIES.
Fifty Thousand of Them Ordered for Vari
Gus Mexican Roads.

fifty 1nOuSauu Oh lno" OrU0F00 fOH NhrAs
Gus Mexican Roads.
The railways of Mexico have ordered
over $4,000 metal ties from England, to
be delivered and laid on their extern
sions during 1887. Many of these
metal ties are to be used hundreds OF
miles inland from the point OF delivery
on the coast of Mexico, after being
freighted across the ocean.
Wooden ties are to-day being shipped
from Michigan to Mexico for the new
lines being built near the border of the
United States to connect with our rail-
way systems. Wooden ties are be-
coming so scarce that our railway
managers are compelled to bring them
from as far north as Maine and as far
south as Florida, while they are not
nearly so rigid in the inspection of ties
as formerly, accepting many now that
would have been called second-class a
few years ago.
A good metal tie will outlast seven
wooden ones and then be valuable as
old metal, say at the end of fifty years.
This is a wonderfully promising field
for some inventor with brain enough to
produce a simple metal tie that will be
acceptable to our railway managers,
for iron is so cheap and such great inn
provements have recently been made
in its manufacture, especially since the
introduction of natural gas as fuel,
that we may safely say the days of the
wooden ties are numbered. There is a
big fortune slumbering here for some
of our live American inventors, greater
even than Mr.. George Westinghouse
got for his air brake. Who can grasp
the idea and produce something prac.
! ticable, made of steel or iron, free from
bolts. rivets, nuts or keys, and hav-
ing all the elasticity of the present
wooden tie? Steel is now produced
at almost the same cost as iron, as is
shown in the contract for the new
Market street bridge, which is to be of
steel, at less than three cents per
pound. Note the variety of shapes in
the metal for the bridge, while metal
ties would be all alike.
The late Colonel Thos. A. Scott felt a
great interest in the metallic subject,
and the Pennsylvania Railroad Com
pany to-day is testing some metal ties
with the view of adopting the best
they can get when the time comes for
them to do 80. In plain words, our
railways can see that the time is very
near at hand when they will be COM
peeled to adopt metal tie or some ac-
ceptable substitute for the present
wooden sleeper, which is so fast disap-
pearing by the rapid depletion
of our forests. We have to-day in
the United States close to 14O, 900 miles
of railroads. The year 1886 saw about
5000 miles laid, and it is expected
that fully 1900 more will be built in
1887. Many of our rolling-mills have
all the steel rails contracted tor al
ready that they can produce within the
year. Why do not some of our roll
ing-mills look after those Mexican con-
tracts for metal ties and not let them
60 entirely to England, when we Amer
leans are so much nearer Mexico !?
The iron ties being tested by the Penn
sylvania Railroad Company are good
and stand all the racket and hard work
required of them, but are too expens-
i've, costing over SIS each. Besides,
they are composed of about eighteen
separate parts, which is very objection
able. -Philadetphia Times.